TUSCALOOSA, Alabama -- Leave the campus and head up the bumpy street toward the railroad tracks. Stop. Wait. Sit as the crossing bar all but drops in your lap, letting Amtrak's Crescent rumble south toward New Orleans.

It's the same destination, the site of the BCS Championship Game, for Alabama's football team, if all goes well for the Tide this weekend.

It's a different world on the other side of the tracks. The stately University of Alabama buildings and healthy trees and sense of normalcy in your rear-view mirror give way to a wasteland.

But, because of what a football team did off the field as much as on it, there is an unbreakable sense of community that connects the two sides.

Stories are legion about how Alabama's football players, and many other Tide coaches, athletes and former athletes, assisted in the tornado recovery effort.

For that, the 2011 Alabama football team was announced Monday as the winner of the Disney Spirit Award. It's been given annually since 1996 to college football's most inspirational player or team.

"It really speaks well for the University of Alabama," coach Nick Saban said. "It speaks well for a lot of people in the organization who made a significant contribution to trying to help a community that was affected by probably as devastating of a circumstance as I've ever had to deal with in my life."

Carson Tinker, the Tide's long snapper, will accept the award on behalf of his teammates.

Tinker, said Saban, "probably lost the most and has given the most."

Tinker's girlfriend, Ashley Harrison, was yanked out of his arms and killed when the tornado struck his home.

Acres upon acres still sit empty after April's tornadoes in Tinker's old Forest Lake neighborhood. Massive signposts that once hoisted neon messages stretch empty-handed into the sky. A peaceful lake remains littered with limbs and debris.

Deep in the pit of your stomach, you wonder if they really can. There is still a day-after feel in some places. You can sense the helpless "where are we supposed to start?" feeling so many tornado victims have articulated.

It's one tiny step at a time. The guys with the post-hole diggers planting some landscaping at a house that's nearly habitable again. A block away, a guy with the bulldozer shoving away construction debris. Painters another block away.

On many of the homes, crimson Alabama flags hang limply from porch columns.

"I know our community cares about us a lot," offensive lineman William Vlachos said. "I don't think what we do on Saturdays necessarily heals people and what they've gone through. But any time you can distract and entertain, which is what we do, that's very important."

Back across the tracks, part of Saban's weekly news conference was about Alabama's mindset. After its emotional loss to LSU, the Tide has been lackluster in easy wins over Mississippi State and Georgia Southern.

Even on Iron Bowl week, the sentiment that a football team is coming back seems awfully trite on the other side of the tracks. Then again, maybe it's simply part of the shared spirit of this bruised community.

Contact Mark McCarter at mark.mccarter@htimes.com and follow him on Twitter @markmccarter